Week(s) in Review- September 7th- 19th

September 7th- 19th

-We had a fun little family labor day- made me wish Harold was here, but glad I have my parents! We took Harrison on a walk and too the park all together- it was fun! Grandma even went down the slide- TWICE! =) We went home and had a great dinner of grilled hot dogs, homemade potato salad, & cucumbers & red onions marinated in oil, vinegar & dijon mustard. Yum, yum!



GRRR... Bad to the bone!








Mischievous little man...



Practicing playing with the football for Daddy's return! =)









Blocks are yummy!










Toy deprived? Oh man...










Babies love their boxes...










This is why I need to wear a bib ALL THE TIME!










Happy baby boy!










This week we celebrated Auntie Tori's 24th birthday! We walked around downtown and shopped, then I dropped HP off for an adult dinner of sushi (which I couldn't have, boo.) at Arrowwood.









Rad like Dad



Harrison got a new Harley from his great-aunt Arlene! He loves it, although Mommy already let him fall once... uh oh.








-Harrison added cottage cheese & yogurt. His vote? Yogurt- thumbs up. Cottage cheese? BIG thumbs down. We'll keep trying though. =)

-The little guy is officially mobile- although, not forward. =) He can "crawl" backwards to get virtually anywhere, and rotate around 360 degrees. He's starting to get up on all fours & rock a little bit as well. He'll be crawling (forward) in no time!

-We have 2 more weeks in MN, then we're off to home in TX! It's a little bittersweet, but I know the second I see Harold I'm going to be all happy!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday- Harrison & Grandpa

Free KFC

So you have T-15 hours to claim your free KFC from Oprah! Till 10 PM tomorrow you can download a coupon for a free KFC meal, good until May 19th. Even the Weight Watchers points can't keep me away from FREE KFC! =)

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090430-tows-kfc-coupon-download



Since 11 AM my four-month-old has slept for about 2 hours total. If it was 2 hours in a row... eh, I could deal with that. It's this half hour crap that's going to drive me crazy. Not to mention the few nap attempts of my own that where very rudely interrupted. He's lucky he's the damn cutest baby in all of the universe. I truly have no right to complain, my parents get up with him most mornings when at 5:30 the final attempt for more sleep by putting the paci back in fails. When I get home, my world is going to change in a big way! Harrison's will too- being fawned over by 3 people all day long must be pretty nice. Now it's time to make dinner- I'm in charge, as my mom is working. I'm pretty hungry. But I'm not going to cry about it, unlike some people I know...

Living in MN

Harold has officially left for Afghanistan- It's actually a lot harder than I even expected. He's still been traveling there and really hasn't gotten many chances to even email, so I hope once everything settles down there and I can talk to him a bit more I will feel better. He was supposed to be in Bagrum, but they've moved him to Kabul, the capital. He's says the city is very poor.

Here at the Harris' we are doing well. Harrison isn't taking the greatest naps, it's bringing back memories of Kaylen and his short little naps. He's plenty happy when he's awake though. Still loves playing with his gym and gazing at himself in the mirror- he thinks he's pretty hot stuff. He's purposefully grabbing at toys, burp rags being some of his favorite. He's getting ready to roll from his back to his front. He gets so much exercise attempting!

It's been a little too cold for walks and playing outside- I look at the weather in Texas everyday and sigh. I'm not sure if I could ever live in MN again.

There really isn't much else to report. I'm really enjoying the downtime. The summer weekends are filling up fast- we'll be busy! Hope everyone is well.



http://joandbaby.blogspot.com/

Last Night

We leave Thursday for our big trip to KS & MN! It's 1 AM and I can't sleep... I'm a little sad because this is the last night we have here at home together. Harold is going to Tennessee tomorrow to surprise a friend and go to his change of command ceremony. Then Thursday it's road trip time! We bought a tablet DVD player (the screen lifts up to put the dvd in) so we can rig it so Harrison can see it in his rear facing car seat. He really dislikes the car- we went out to dinner tonight and he cried the whole way there and home. Hopefully a little "Baby Einstein" will do the trick.

The whole thing is so bittersweet- I'm overjoyed to be getting back to family and friends in MN, but sad about being away from HP for so long. I'm sure it will go by fast, I'll be busy. But the first few weeks will be hard!

Harrison is almost three months old- he coo's A LOT (although really tough to get on camera) and smiles constantly. (well, if he's not hungry or tired that is) Still "going to the gym" as Harold says to kick and squirm like a maniac. He is not a cuddler- he refuses to lay on your chest. While it's a little sad, probably a good thing for the long run. He's not a "hold me" baby. I feel so blessed to have everything in my life the way it is right now. My husband and baby are perfect =)

Can't wait to see a lot of you soon!!

He made it!

The little guy is here- Harrison Gage Price was born on January 3rd, 2009 @ 10:31 A.M. Everything with the birth went well- my water broke at 11 A.M. on the 2nd while out for a walk (not the best thing that's ever happened to me) They had to induce me and I was in labor for about 15 hours and pushing for 1.5- everything went well except for the epidural running out approximately 3 pushes in. But thank goodness for the lovely brain that blocks out the pain, because looking back the whole experience was really good, fun almost. Harold was an amazing coach and the nurse we had during delivery was great too. We were in the hospital for 48 hours and took him home exactly a year to the day that Harold and I met (January 5th). What a year! =) Things since then have been amazing- he's grown and changed so much, as newborns do! He's already got quite the feisty personality. We had Harold's mom, his friend Ken & family, and my parents here to stay (not at the same time, haha). All visits went well and everyone was in love with little hp, especially Ken's son Kaden, who talked about "Baby Hawison" all day long. Harold left for Ft. Lewis last Tuesday for 4 weeks. Harrison has changed a lot even in the short time he's been gone- he started smiling a lot more and is more alert and content just laying on the floor and kicking. He's started to look at toys and objects. I'm already dying for Harold to get home and see all the changes. He did get to watch Harrison roll over- it was pretty exciting because we were all just staring at him.

We found out about 2 weeks ago that Harold is deploying to Afghanistan in April. =( Not the best news I've ever recieved, but as far as deployments go it works out pretty well. It's good for his career, and for money. I get to move back to Minnesota (during the summer!). We also talked about how if you had to miss 6 months of Harrison's life, these months are pretty good. He'll be almost 11 months when he gets back, so just starting to walk and talk. And I'm very thankful he didn't miss the birth!

7 Months, 3 Weeks, 6 Days

Back home in Texas! It feels so good to be home- except for the large increase in responsibility. Having your mother do your laundry, dishes, etc is quite different then running your own home. But since this is my dream I'm happy. =)

My baby shower at home was AMAZING! My mom worked so hard to get the house ready and cook the food, Tori made an absolutely perfect cake (http://flickr.com/photos/joannamarieharris/3010421213/in/photostream/) , and Teresa's games and planning were awesome. Thank you to everyone who came, and for all the wonderful gifts. Harrison is a spoiled little boy already!

I was so lucky to get to see so many family and friends while home- sorry to those of you who I missed. I thought 5 weeks home would be plenty of time to make the rounds, but I guess I spent too much time relaxing in Alexandria. But I think just being at home with my parents is what I needed most. Harrison will be missing out by not getting to spend his first 2 years close to his wonderful grandparents. Either grandparents. The next time you talk to Harold, please subtly let him now how wonderful Minnesota is! =)

Harold got to meet a lot of my friends and family when he flew in to drive back with me- Even though his missed flight messed a few things up, we had dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory and got to spend time with a few special people. I love to show him off. =)

Our drive home was good- got to stay with friends of Harold's from college- Mark and Terra. They had a 5 week old little boy, Adler, who was so adorable. He was a little peanut, still weighing 7 pounds and some change. Holding him, of course, got me overly excited for our little HP.

Harold is at work today, but had M-TH off, and has M and Tu off next week as well for Veteran's day. It's wonderful to get to spend time at home! Even though we are so busy with various household activities. For those of you who heard the story of Harold's painting, the room is OK. It's not my dream of my first nursery, but it's bright and "boyish" as Harold says. I just wish we could go around and paint the whole house- the white walls are a little too much for me. But in the 2 years we'll be here, it's probably not worth painting them and potentially having to paint them back. I'm slowly but surely getting some changes done around here. I'm already looking forward to our next house. =)

Oprah would have been so proud of my shopping trip today- she did a show the other day about saving money. I went to Wal-Mart and wrote the total price as I put things in the cart. I also printed off coupons, and spent a lot of time making decisions about if we really needed something, and finding the lowest price. Saving money makes me happy. It also makes me feel better about all the things I purchase unnecessarily for this little boy. Kate Gosslin (Jon and Kate plus 8) once said that as a stay at home mom, her job is to make Jon's money stretch as far as possible. I'm beginning to take on the challenge. =)

ps- comments are welcome! =)

7 Months, 1 Week, 4 Days

Back again- I guess I got lazy for awhile, but I thought I would pick this up again. Mostly because I don't really know what to do with myself here in MN. HP is in Tacoma, Washington doing some rather important testing and I'm here at 10th and Cedar pretty much doing nothing but relaxing. So far so good. =) I've been working a little bit, which has been great. The feeling of actually contributing to society does a body good. It's still a little bizarre to me that Harold has to support me right now. I've spent the last few years not being able to lose even a week's pay, and here I am making little to no money for months. So far so good on the married life =) I miss him though- He says it looks like he might be here as early as the 1st which is NEXT WEEKEND! It's like I've gotten so used to being here and being apart from him, I can't believe that we're actually going to be reunited soon. And I get to go home and NEST! Yay!

Sunday is my baby shower here- I'm rather excited. Jan is going all out, it's touching. She is really good at that stuff tho- She can throw a mean party. I know the girls are working hard as well.

Went to the DR. last week- things are great! We've been so blessed with this close to perfect pregnancy. No nausea, good blood pressure, no gestational diabetes, his heart rate has been perfect, he's moving like crazy, I've been measuring perfectly... Praise the Lord! I can't believe how soon he will be here- I know it won't be real until we bring him home. And luckily, we have plenty of places to put him! =) (Harold things we have too much "stuff"... bouncer, exersaucer, pack&play, glider, swing... ok maybe we do, but this is my first baby!)